Long Overdue Update

Hello! I hope you are well. It's been so long since we've talked (well, unless you follow me on social media, then it's probably been a couple of minutes). This update is long overdue, and it's a long one. So buckle up!

If you follow me and Jacob on social media you'll know that we have been busy with a lot of life and other projects. That's no excuse for letting things cool here, though, as Jadepunk is our firstborn; and your support means the world to us. But at $100-200 a month in revenues over the past three years, we haven't had the funds to keep the line moving forward very quickly. Being our first Kickstarter, we made quite a few mistakes, one of which is overpromising on the stretch goals (I think that's probably obvious by now). So we've depended on those revenues––and the revenues of our other projects––to keep things moving forward.

Where We're At

Regarding the Fate Core offerings, we're still missing the Gazetteer and the Martial supplements. You should have received a text copy of the final installment of Jadepunk Tales: Vigilance Committee Vol. 3––as soon as we can afford some additional art we'll get that all prettified and put up on DTRPG.

But that Gazetteer and Martial supplement...we need a cost-effective solution for those. Here's what we've come up with: I'm going to do some write-ups for the prevalent martial arts styles of the setting in the voice of Arthur P. Winsworth III, like I did for the Naramel book. It'll be a shorter document than our usual releases, and with only minor layout, but it'll be playable.

For the Gazetteer...I don't know. Jacob is ready with some great world building material, but it feels like a gazetteer needs art, doesn't it? At any rate, we'll probably do something similar to the martial supplement, for now, just to get something into your hands until we figure out a better solution (we have one, but it's a roundabout way of reusing future art––keep reading).

What Are We Doing About Funds?

First, though quite related, a note about the other editions we promised.

Since we launched this project (5 years ago!) a lot has happened in the gaming community. Cortex Plus crashed and burned, and then was resurrected, and PbtA has had about a thousand games put out.

Working in the Cortex Plus arena, with how questionable it's been in the last half-decade, is a business risk we can't afford to take. We need products that will move so we can bring some life back to the Jadepunk line.

PbtA is still a strong possibility, but, given our financial troubles, maybe something we could do a smaller document for, like the boutique games out there for other settings?

I understand those last few paragraphs are pretty disappointing to some of you. My apologies for that. As I said at the beginning of this update, this was our first Kickstarter. Mistakes were made. My second Kickstarter had fewer mistakes, and my 3rd only a couple of mistakes. So, we're learning, but we still messed up here. To make it right, we need more funding.

This all brings us to talking about...

The Second Edition of Jadepunk

Five years is a long time. A long time for us to learn about the business. A long time for us to figure out what Jadepunk is, what it really is. We have a lot of ideas for minor and major setting changes that would make the core aspects of Jadepunk really stand out. These changes aren't just an updated digital document; there's too much to update for that. Plus, updating the digital document doesn't fix our financial problem. In fact, it exacerbates it.

Remember (just a few paragraphs ago) when I said we needed a system that would move. Well, nothing on the market moves better than d20. And the king of d20 is the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. So we're planning on writing the second edition of Jadepunk in the gray area between 5e and 13th Age (because we love 5e, but there are things we would have done differently, and the 5e designers may have also done differently had they not been forced to stick to certain D&D design tropes).

Does This Mean Another Kickstarter?

Yes, but for you it's optional. As I said, we want to make things right. Because of the weak production value of our final Fate offerings, we would like to give all of our backers here a free digital copy of the second edition of Jadepunk in the d20 system. As far as we're concerned, you've already supported us, and we owe you.

The only reason to back the Kickstarter would be if you wanted to receive a print copy of the book. But you could also wait to pick that up later on. Honestly, without any persuasion whatsoever, we want this to be accessible to you as a replacement for the Cortex Plus version, as an apology for not being able to live up to our usual high production standards for the final few documents, and as a thank you for your support.

We can't thank you enough for being there for us in the beginning. We're sorry we had to use Jadepunk as our platform to learn from, but learn we have––though we're still not perfect, by any stretch. We hope this is acceptable to you (exciting even?).

Live and learn. I've gotten way more than my money's worth from this Kickstarter. Frankly speaking I'm not expecting any more. Best wishes on a d20 conversion. Would love to see the tweaks to you make to the system.

I certainly don't begrudge you the mistakes you've made. I'm happy with the products you've produced, and now I'm really pumped for a d20 version! That sounds like a lot of fun, and thank you for the consideration